As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
One type of information handling system is a blade server, or simply “blade.” Blades are often self-contained information handling systems designed specifically to allow the placement of multiple blades in a single enclosure or aggregation of enclosures. A blade enclosure or chassis may hold multiple blades and provide services to the various blades such as power, cooling, networking, interconnects, and management. For example, the chassis may include a plurality of power supply units configured to provide power to blades mounted in the chassis.
One type of information handling system is a modular information handling system which may also be referred to as a blade server, a brick server, a modular enclosure, or a modular storage system. Modular information handling systems typically contain a midplane for interconnecting multiple modular components such as modular driver carriers or blades. The midplane and modular components are typically stored in a chassis with a front opening that allows for installation and removal of the modular components minimizing the installation and removal operations. Some modular information handling systems allow modular components (e.g., blades) to be installed or removed while the system is operating which is often referred to as a “hot-swap.”
FIG. 1 shows a front view of an example chassis 10 of a prior art blade server 10, having no blades installed therein. Chassis 10 is divided by vertical walls 12 into four generally vertical compartments 1-4 for receiving server blades. Each compartment 1-4 may include four “bays”—two lower bays and two upper bays—for receiving up to four blades, depending on the size or form factor of such blades. To illustrate, compartment 1 includes 4 bays, indicated as bays A, B, C, and D in FIG. 1.
For example, chassis 10 may support four different blade form factors:                1. Single-High Single-Wide (SHSW) (occupies 1 bay)        2. Single-High Double-Wide (SHDW) (occupies 2 horizontally adjacent bays)        3. Double-High Single-Wide (DHSW) (occupies 2 vertically adjacent bays)        4. Double-High Double-Wide (DHDW) (occupies 4 bays)        
A single compartment may receive:
(a) 1 Double-High Double-Wide blade; or
(b) 2 Double-High Single-Wide blades located side by side; or
(c) 2 Single-High Double-Wide blades located one above the other; or
(d) 4 Single-High Single-Wide blades with two on the bottom side-by-side and two located above the bottom two.
Removable mid-floor support structures 14 are used in order to insert blades in upper bays (e.g., bays A and B shown in FIG. 1). FIG. 1 shows mid-floor support structures 14 located in each of compartments 1-4.
FIG. 2 illustrates an example configuration of prior art chassis 10 with different-sized blades inserted therein.
Compartment 1 includes four Single-High Single-Wide blades 20A, with a mid-floor support structure 14 used to support the top two blades.
Compartment 3 includes two Single-High Single-Wide blades 20A on bottom and a Single-High Double-Wide blade 20B on top, with a mid-floor support structure 14 used to support the Single-High Double-Wide blade 20B.
Compartment 4 includes a single Double-High Double-Wide blade 20C.
Compartment 2 includes a Single-High Single-Wide blade 20A and a Double-High Single-Wide blade 20D positioned side-to-side. With this configuration, another Single-High Single-Wide blade cannot be inserted above the lower Single-High Single-Wide blade 20A because a mid-floor support structure 14 for supporting another Single-High Single-Wide blade cannot be inserted in compartment 2 (due to the presence of the Double-High Single-Wide blade). Thus, one of the upper bays of compartment 2, indicated at 22, is unusable.
Thus, such traditional blade server configurations do not maximize blade connectivity, as certain bays of the chassis may remain unused. In addition, blade blanks intended to prevent airflow recirculation cannot be installed securely as they also latch into the removable mid-floor.